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Yeah, yeah, I know I’m way late to the party on this one, but I just wanted to weigh in quickly on this whole “Boobquake” thing.

For those who, like me 5 minutes ago, have no idea what this refers to, an Iranian cleric attributed the “immodest” dressing of women to the increase in earthquakes.

Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes.”

As you can read in the article, a woman named Jennifer McCreight launched an effort to prove Sedighi wrong.  On April 26th, tens of thousands of women intend to wear their most revealing attire, figuring that if Sedighi is right, an earthquake should surely follow soon afterwards.

Chances are that nothing will happen, and that Sedighi is either a complete moron, or a ideological predator attempting to appeal to people’s sexual conservatism – through fear – in order to recruit more people to his particular moral code. (more…)

Valentine’s Day is a day that, like all good cynics, I take issue with for all the usual reasons:

1. Why should we only pay special attention to our significant others on a certain day?
2. The holiday is just part of a consumerist scheme to support the “industrial complex”

Blah blah blah.  Whatever.  It’s all true, of course, but I wasn’t going to post anything about it until I came across this promotional offer from XBox Live.  It offers some free Microsoft Points if only you’ll watch one of the offered movies with your loved one on Valentine’s Day.  Sounds like a good deal, except for the wording of the advertisement.

It annoyed me right away on a subliminal level, although it took me a bit of time to rationalize why exactly I took issue with it.  At first it was the dichotomy between those who have “someones” and those who do not.  I must either a sentimental sap who likes frilly pink hearts simply for having a girlfriend, or I’m some chest-pounding “manly-man” type who “don’t need no stinkin’ girlfriend! Guys rule!”  Is that it?

I couldn’t possibly be a guy who is between relationships, or a guy who for the sake of career, livelihood, or personal choice, just doesn’t have a significant other?  I couldn’t be a girl who is single for any of the same reasons?  Or a girl who doesn’t like frilly pink hearts?  I couldn’t be a gay man or woman in a relationship where such cave-painted gender roles aren’t so clearly established?  I couldn’t be a person of any gender and sexual orientation who appreciates a romance movie, even watched in solitude?  Maybe I’m some basement-dweller with the social skills of an empty pizza box and movies are my escape from harsh reality, in which case, thanks for reminding me of that. (more…)

Not-See

–noun.
a person able to ignore or deny certain realities, such as racism, sexism, classism, sexualism, ableism, or religious prejudice by virtue of the privilege associated with membership within a dominant group.

Origin: Unknown Date, Americanism

Word Origin & History
A play on words, the pronunciation of “Not-See” invokes the word “Nazi”. The crimes of the former are passive instead of active – those who would turn a blind eye to injustice rather than perpetrating it themselves. The ideologies of both, however, are predicated upon a certain egocentrism, social privilege, and stark self-versus-other mentality.

Not-Sees are people who witness racism or other prejudices and either are unaware of it, or even when made aware of it, deny it – even going to great lengths to explain it away or dismiss the grievances of those affected by that prejudice. Not-Sees love to use the term “race-card”.

Look into any discussion in an online forum about, say, whitewashing – or racebending – as it pertains to the upcoming Last Airbender film:

Here’s a clue – people invest millions of dollars into films because they want to make more millions of dollars, not because they want to help insecure people feel better about themselves. If some of the title roles are played by “white” actors, it’s not racism, it’s marketing.¹

Or blackface in The Secret of Kells:

You’re all babies, this is an animated movie, not KKK propaganda. Get over yourselves, either watch it or don’t, but don’t pollute a thread with this bullshit. Racism is bad ra ra we all get it move along please.²

And the PSP game Loco Roco:

…I’ve been playing the demo of this game for sometime now, and these thoughts never crossed my mind, and you know what, I’m sure the kids who will play this game will never see it as well. I’m 23 years old, and after you pointing out all this bollocks I still don’t see it, I see it as a fun, creative game…³

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Update (4/30/2010): When I posted this article on the Bioware Social Forum, a poster pointed out to me that the allegory of the elves could just as easily be taken to refer to Jews or other peoples who have been enslaved.  Given that I am of African descent, it is natural that I would interpret the elven story the way I did.

However, considering that poster’s comment, much of what I’ve written below may be plainly misinterpreted, at least with respect to the developer’s intentions.  While I could assume that Bioware intended the game to be open to multiple interpretations, I must also consider the words of Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider, who in response to the lack of darker people in the game world had the following to say:

While there are “dark skinned” people in Rivain, I have no interest in making Ferelden more diverse for the sake of political correctness.

I considered deleting this entire post, but perhaps it is worth leaving here to demonstrate what would be praise-worthy in terms of inclusion in video games, were any developer so inclined to walk that path.

Back in February, in the article Black, White, and Jade: Race in Video Games, and earlier in Ethnic Depictions in Video Games, I talked about a need for video games to become more inclusive with their characters, to depict the same diversity we see in the real world in these imaginary ones. Plainly, this translates to having more non-white characters in video games, particularly as the main characters.  And furthermore to have those characters exist outside of stereotypes.  With the exception of games built from pre-existing properties featuring characters of color – for example, Shadowman – there are very few games with non-white human protagonists.

In Black, White, and Jade, I mention that it is not merely about skin color or other physical features, but also about culture, and about experience. Regarding so-called “black” characters, I said:

What would be required for a character to be considered “black”? Appearance could be one qualifier … dubious due to … the extreme diversity to be found within such a vague and subjective category.

The “black experience” could be another qualifier, as in a situation where a character is forced to face certain indignities [as a result of her ethnicity].

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This post could also be entitled: “Uncharted 2 and Why I Can’t Enjoy Anything Anymore.”

Let me preface this rant by saying that Uncharted 2 is a remarkable game, on both technical and aesthetic levels.  It is in fact the PS3′s “killer app” and is well-deserving of all of the accolades it has received thus far.  I have been playing it for the past two weeks and I am still discovering little details that demonstrate both the level of skill and love for the craft that can go into a triple-A title.  But perhaps it is for all those accolades and that demonstration of skill that I must call the game out on a several fronts.

Ever since I’ve taken on a more, shall we say “militant” bent, I’ve become aware of things that I had taken for granted before.  I’ve had discussions with various people – particularly African-Americans – about video games where they expressed to me their problem with the prevalence of white protagonists.  They felt a disconnect from the characters they were playing for this reason, felt they couldn’t “relate” to them.  For most of my life, whenever I’ve had this conversation, I’ve thought it was silly.

For one thing, I didn’t feel that way at all.  For another, there were plenty of ways/reasons to identify with a character outside of race/ethnicity.  For another, in my view, most of these games were taking place on other worlds – worlds where our racial categories do not exist.  Even where themes of discrimination were visited, as in the game Chrono Cross, it was likely a problem between humans and some actual other race – like Elves or Metahumans or whatever else.  So what did it matter that the hero in this world happened to be a blue-eyed blonde-haired ubermensch?  I’m looking at you, Cloud Strife.

But, as you can imagine, something has changed for me.  I still maintain my “other worlds” argument, but the fact is that these games are made BY people from THIS world, and so I have developed a bone of contention not with the white protagonists, but with a development community that completely ignores diversity, or where non-white characters are featured as stereotypes or mockeries.

I’m looking at you, just about every game out of Japan. (more…)

To say that the 2008 Democratic Presidential nominating process has divided the party is an understatement. It’s created a chasm – along racial, religious, social, and economic lines. The people who support Hillary Clinton do so with zeal and with a contempt for Barack Obama’s campaign. The reverse is true for people who support Barack Obama, except there seems to be the added dimension of how those supporters feel about Hillary Clinton as a person. Using myself as an example, this campaign has made me not only condemn Clinton’s candidacy, but has led me to expressing something verging on hatred for the woman herself.

I have used all sorts of euphemisms to describe her, regrettably ones that highlight that she is a woman, even though her gender has absolutely nothing to do with my disdain. It just so happens that our language has assigned feminine-associated words with negative attributions (more…)

The following article is part of an independent study intended to examine and deconstruct the biases of the author (and undoubtedly many others) towards the practices within “Islam”. The quotations there acknowledge that such an umbrella term was made prominent by Westerners (i.e. non- practitioners) and is often mistakenly used to group many ideologies under one category, to the detriment of acknowledging the many differences between them. I will continue to use the term Islam to highlight the fact that this article may need to be subjected to further scrutiny to acknowledge that the assessments contained within do not apply universally to any group of people or ideologies. Aside from casting a negative light on a religion, my biases present the additional risk of stigmatizing the people who participate in it, and it is for that reason most of all that I am writing this article.

It should be understood in advance that I am writing as someone who is mostly secular in orientation, and a skeptic who feels a need to challenge anything that would be claimed as “truth”. That being the case, I must also put my own orientation to the test, to be willing to abandon my preconceptions about religion – particularly that it is necessarily any more misguided than scientism or any other secular schools of thought. It should also be noted that where I have any grievances towards Islam, it is not due to any exaltation of Western ideals. Instead my biases come out of my own personal ideals – such as a strong sense of justice – which while certainly shaded by Western ideology often fall outside of that context. That is to say, I am not making any qualitative comparisons between “Islam” and “the West”, because I am equally inclined to subject both to indictment.

So it must be said that my bias did not emerge out of some self-fulfilling prophecy that there was anything inherently wrong with Islam, as is often the case where the self must find fault with the “other” to maintain its integrity. Instead it emerged where Islam came into ideological conflict with my own ideals. Therefore Islam can easily be “redeemed” if by further examination I find that my preconceptions on the whole are incorrect. With all of this in mind, one of the few points of contention that I have with Islam is what I have perceived to be a great inequality between genders. I acknowledge right from the start that this preconception is based on the absolute minimum of information about Islam, some of it drawn from sensationalist pop-journalism, the rest from my own conjecture based on what I’ve observed. Focusing on two particular situations that appear to demonstrate gender inequality, I will gather more information, and attempt to either affirm or refute my preconceptions. (more…)